Presences We Live By

This paper sketches a tour de force of philosophical as well as poetic concepts of time from G. Vico (ricorsi), F. Nietzsche (Wiederkunft), V. Woolf (Orlando), W. Benjamin (Ur/Sprung), E. Auerbach (figura) and Hannah Arendt (“in-between”). It maps the returns and lapses of time from cycles to spirals, theoretical models, and visualizations which are brought forth to solve the problem of how not to fall back into earlier already overcome stages of development, and to realize the network of strings between now and then in order to make a difference in the future. I will underline the statement that we have no access to the archives of history as long as we are not traveling back to the future. For history is not enclosed in the past, it is reassembled by future tasks: from Vico’s chronological monsters as illegitimate descendants to Zarathustra’s pregnancies as preparation for the return of the unbearable, from the queer feeling of time vibrations in Virginia Woolf’s Orlando to Benjamin’s jumping sessions from origin to origin, from Auerbach’s vertical lift to Arendt’s “in-between.

Forms of Study — Or How to Interpret Black Music

In seinem Buch analysiert Dhanveer Singh Brar Phänomene der Black music. Er schließt an Debatten über undercommons, aesthetic sociality und Blackness an, und entwickelt darauf aufbauend das Konzept der sonic ecology. An drei Fallbeispielen zeigt der Autor, wie sich musikalisch-soziale Praktiken gegen die rassifizierte Realität des frühen 21. Jahrhunderts auflehnen.In his book, Dhanveer Singh Brar analyzes phenomena of Black music. He contributes to debates about undercommons, aesthetic sociality, and Blackness, and develops the concept of sonic ecology. Using three case studies, the author shows how musical-social practices mediate and counter the racialized reality of the early 21st century

Images of Terror: How to “See” Trauma in Literary Texts?

Terrorizing Images: Trauma and Ekphrasis in Contemporary Literature untersucht, wie Bilder, die Trauma darstellen, neue Wege zum Verständnis von Ekphrasis, der verbalen Darstellung von Bildern in Literatur, eröffnen. Anstatt Ekphrasis im konventionellen Kampf zwischen dem Visuellen und dem Verbalen zu verwurzeln, bietet der Sammelband neue Aspekte für die Praxis, Bilder des Schreckens in literarische Texte einzubauen. Folglich wird Ekphrasis mit neuen Inhalten und Funktionen versehen — und bleibt so ihrem sich ständig wandelnden Wesen treu.Terrorizing Images: Trauma and Ekphrasis in Contemporary Literature explores how images of trauma open new ways of understanding the phenomenon of ekphrasis, the verbal representation of images in literature. Instead of rooting ekphrasis in the conventional rivalry between the visual and the verbal, the volume offers fresh points of view of the practice of incorporating images of terror in literary texts. As a result, ekphrasis is provided with new subjects and functions — thus remaining true to its ever-changing nature

What Does the 250th Anniversary of the Independence Mean to a 'Browner' America?

Frederick Douglass’ 1852 address “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July” poignantly called attention to the Black people who were still unfree slaves when the Republic joyfully celebrated freedom and independence on its 76th anniversary. Echoing Douglass, this paper searches for the meaning of the 250th anniversary in a deeply fractured and divided America by focusing on the historical and current ‘color scheme.’ An in-depth examination of America’s history and cultural history, represented by the paradigms White, Black, Brown, Yellow, and Browner opens space for analysis and arguments on the formation of national character, the cultivation of cultural identity, and the definition of Americanism. This essay tackles the core of Whiteness in relation to Blackness (African Americans), Brownness (Native Americans), and Yellowness (Chinese/Asian Americans) to unpack a heated and culturally charged topic of race relations and capture the significance of the ‘Browner’ in ‘Browner America’ in anticipation of the 250th anniversary

Between Roman Authority and Greek Ritual: The Turbulent History of the Uniate Church at the End of the Eighteenth Century

Disunion within the Union ist eine überarbeitete Fassung eines Artikels des Autors, der bereits 1984 veröffentlicht wurde. Larry Wolff, der führende Wissenschaftler und Historiker auf dem Gebiet der Mittel- und Osteuropa Forschung des achtzehnten Jahrhunderts, greift das Thema erneut auf und reichert seine früheren Ausführungen dazu mit neuen Erkenntnissen an. Das Ergebnis ist eine fesselnde Studie über die Geschichte der Unierten Kirche in den turbulenten Zeiten der Teilungen von Polen-Litauen.Disunion within the Union is a revised study of the author’s article published in the journal of the Ukrainian Research Institute at Harvard University in 1984. Larry Wolff, the leading scholar and historian in the field of eighteenth century Central and Eastern Europe, has decided to return to the subject and enrich his earlier engagement with it with new insights. The result is an engaging study of the history of the Uniate church during the turbulent times of the partitions of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth

Extended Minds and Instrumentality

This contribution offers a literary approach to extended cognition and asks in which capacity interactions with the nonhuman come to shape cognitive development. Specifically, this question is posed in regards to our active use of nonhuman instruments that are recognized as a reflection of social practices that mediate our engagement with the world. In this sense, the fictional journal entries of this _perspective track the development of novel cognitive structures on the basis of a recently introduced communication device. The narration provides a genealogy of a communal shift in thought and in conclusion advances speculations on the mediating role of instruments. In continuation, the narrative segment is followed by a scholarly reflection which decidedly rejects the idea of cognition as limited to the confines of the head. Through elaborating the hybrid alliances between ourselves and the nonhuman, this second segment mobilizes concerns of the extended mind hypothesis in the context of artificial intelligence. This succinct reflection hence applies questions regarding the mediating role of instruments to the domain of artificial intelligence and asks how computational architectures which actively adapt to our behavioral patterns modify the way in which the instrument relation ought to be critically assessed

Metamorphosis of a Transregional Traffic Junction

Eine fundierte Quellenarbeit mit wenigen Abstrichen: Nadja Weck legt mit ihrer Dissertation Eisenbahn und Stadtentwicklung in Zentraleuropa am Beispiel der Stadt Lemberg (Lwów, L‘viv) einen wichtigen Beitrag zur osteuropäischen Infrastrukturgeschichte vor. A scientific work with high source reference: Nadja Weck’s dissertation Eisenbahn und Stadtentwicklung in Zentraleuropa am Beispiel der Stadt Lemberg (Lwów, L‘viv) is an important contribution to Eastern European infrastructural history

Masculine, Customized

In welchen Ausdrucksweisen zeigt sich patriarchale Sprache? Welchen Einfluss hat geschlechtsspezifische Gestaltung für die Navigation im öffentlichen Raum? Warum begünstigen Wikipedia-Beiträge, Algorithmen und Sprachaktivierungssysteme tradierte stereotype Sichtweisen? Das Erstlingswerk Das Patriarchat der Dinge: Warum die Welt Frauen nicht passt der freien Journalistin Rebecca Endler nimmt sich diesen Fragen an und entschlüsselt in neun Kapiteln die materiellen und immateriellen Entscheidungen des patriarchalen Designs der westlichen Welt.In which expressions does patriarchal language appear? What is the impact of gender-specific design for navigation in public space? Why do Wikipedia articles, algorithms, and speech activation systems encourage traditional stereotypical perspectives? When does the design of living and working environments act in a discriminatory manner? The freelance journalist Rebecca Endler focusses on these questions in her debut book Das Patriarchat der Dinge: Warum die Welt Frauen nicht passt. In nine chapters, she examines material and immaterial patriarchal design in the Western world